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Saturday, September 21, 2013

Medieval Symbolism and Beasts of the Southern Wild

Medieval Theorists endeavored to justify the
use of allegorical language in the Bible and sacred texts.They drew a number of conclusions about the
value of metaphor in communicating unknowable Truths via written texts.These theories and methods of analyzing
metaphor are fascinating to apply to Behn Zeitlin’s 2012 film, Beasts of the Southern Wild.

The film follows a 6 year old protagonist,
Hushpuppy, through her experience living with her Dad in a community called
“The Bathtub.” They are located outside of a protective levy, and are isolated
from much of what might be termed “civilization.” Hushpuppy’s relationship with
her terminally ill father, Wink, is complicated, but sincere.She never knew her mother, and whether her
mother died or left them is never concretely set forth.The pair survive a hurricane-scale storm and
the subsequent flooding, and work to protect their community and its culture
from outside threats, including dehumanizing rescue efforts and mythical
beasts.Ultimately Wink passes away, and
Hushpuppy earns her place as the leader of her community

Augustine[1]
referred to literal and figurative conventional signs.All conventional signs must be literal first,
in order to allow for the creation and connection of figurative meaning.Any
word, image, or constructed representational art is first a literal sign, and
can secondarily be a figurative sign if additional meaning is assigned to it by
the creator or viewer.There were a
number of literal signs in Beasts of the Southern Wild that grew to take on
figurative meanings.The choice of the
filmmakers to present the auroch as being a porcine animal, rather than the
historically accurate bovine classification, was originally one made of
necessity.[2]
They needed an animal smart enough to train. The aurochs were played by baby
potbellied pigs, with a costume made of nutria skins (a rodent native to the
Deep South, fittingly enough.) And by
including an adult potbellied pig in the earlier sequences of the film, the
permeating presence of the pigs, and the contrast between adult and juvenile
physiology created a galaxy of signifiers.[3]

Augustine’s explanation that words themselves
are signs, and simultaneously things is exemplified beautifully when Hushpuppy
says “I wanna be cohesive.” to the
boatman. It is clear that the word itself is only a sign in relation to the
defined meaning of cohesive, because Hushpuppy is clearly not familiar with the
word or its meaning.But the word has
some meaning to her all the same, despite it probably not being the assigned
meaning.She and the boatman assign
different, possibly congruent meaning to the same sign.

Boccaccio[4]
praised poets who take truths and hide them behind a veil of fiction.The presence of this ambiguity of symbolic
meaning surfaces largely through the use of tropes, or recurring themes or
elements within the narrative.There was
clearly some meaning behind the way Wink, Hushpuppy’s dad, proved so sensitive
to Hushpuppy’s touch.On at least 3
separate occasions she hit or pushed him and he collapsed. That there is
meaning in this is easily deduced, but the possibilities for that meaning are
polysemous.

Aristotle was insistent on the binary between
signs or things that are useful versus those that are pleasurable.Based on his religious and cultural
background he put forth that God intended some things to be enjoyed (things
that bring one closer to God,) and other things to be used in the navigation
and cultivation of a life seeking after those things intended to be
pleasurable.According to this religious
binary, when things intended to be used are instead enjoyed, it is an abuse of
the intended purpose.This is an interesting concept to bring to the
scene where the girls from the Bathtub voyage out to the brothel.The contrast of women simultaneously filling
the roles of whore and affectionate mother figure is stark, and consistent with
the convolution of roles throughout the film.In helping to fill the girls’ need for physical affection, these women
are using their physicality for a pleasurable end, rather than abusing it
toward enjoyment in what ought to have been a useful end.

A similar binary is presented with Wink’s
vigorous insistence that neither he nor Hushpuppy are allowed to cry.To indulge in crying, in his worldview,
appears an Augustinian abuse.It is to
wallow in a vein that one ought to pass through as quickly as possible.That there is mutual allowance for
appropriate crying by both of them just before his death is somehow indicative
that the appropriate time has finally arrived and crying is finally
pleasurable, or transcendent.

Dante[5]
might have celebrated how this film utilizes a common vernacular.The meaning of some dialogue has to be
interpreted by viewing the signifiers that appear to be represented.In the scene where the Bathtubbers chant for
Hushpuppy to “Beast it!” It is only possible to deduce what this term means by
seeing her proceed to do it – to break into a crab with her bare hands.Once we establish this literal interpretation
of the term, we are able to begin to grapple with the figurative implications
of the action, it’s place in her society, and the implications of the syntax.

Thomas Aquinas[6],
and subsequently Dante purported that symbolic texts were to read in several
ways, and could carry meaning in each of these ways simultaneously:

Historical/literal meaning,
allegorical/tropological meaning, moral meaning, and anagogical meaning.It would be easy to find an allegorical or
anagogical meaning for the presence of water in this film, but that meaning has
to be established first via the historical/literal meaning of the water.The presence of the flood water is a key plot
point before it is representative of cleansing, rebirth[7],
punishment, or mortal life, or any other polysemous Noah-based signifier[8].

Augustine
said that knowledge of tropes is necessary for resolution of ambiguities. There is tremendous ambiguity surrounding the
presence of the Aurochs in this story, but by noticing that the film
consistently cuts from shots of the group of Aurochs to shots of Hushpuppy and
the other girls in the Bathtub, creates a correlation that (along with the
physical traits of the pigs used to represent Aurochs) makes them each seem
like a group of infants, and makes their understanding of one another seem
plausible, if not possible. (Which Aristotle[9]
would like.)

Examples of
moral interpretation of this film are easy to identify in some of the more
didactic recurring themes and motifs. Hushpuppy repeatedly talks about “strong
animals” while footage of the Aurochs is shown, but by using the term “strong
animal” instead of “Auroch” she leaves the interpretation of her observations
in ambiguity.Based on the sequences
that follow her observations it is easy to conclude that her words hold meaning
in relation to interhuman behaviors as much as to the behavior of the
Aurochs.

Some of the
moral meanings that can be found within this text were described by Silpa
Kovvali: “A protagonist's origins, when humble, are almost
exclusively presented as something to escape, an obstacle on her or his road to
self-fulfillment. Zeitlin [the director] strongly resists this portrayal.The
suggestion is that the city is motivated by self-interest—a desire to quell a
threat rather than to care for the smaller or sweeter among them. It's no
wonder that the residents of the Bathtub are distrustful of everyone and
everything they associate with it, even the institutions that could improve
their material condition. And so Hushpuppy struggles to escape from the
hospital and return to, not run from, her humble origins, which she views as a
crucial part of her identity.No sane person would react to Beasts by deciding that healthcare is
unnecessary or evil. But an open-minded viewer should leave the film with a
greater understanding of the way that complicated political histories can make
people distrustful of institutions widely perceived as universal goods.[10]”

The
numerous anagogical meanings behind the metaphors in this film can be
represented by the example of Hushpuppy’s repeated references to breaking and
fixing things.The power and emphasis
that is placed on individuals actions and decisions – in relation to their
entire environment and community, creates a lasting impression.There is also much to suggest a theme of the
inevitability of mortality and the ideal of a legacy.

The film managed to validate the subculture
of the Bathtub without glamorizing it.The importance of a sense of heritage and community, as something worth
preserving, was a consistent transcendental theme. It did tend toward painting
a negative view of the more “civilized” world – it was too sterile and not
alive enough. The literal presence of varied forms of life and awareness of
heartbeats in Hushpuppy’s Bathtub existence seemed far more alive in contrast
to the shelter/hospital in civilization.

All of the Medieval theorists we’ve discussed
proposed that metaphor allows the sensuous to provide access to the spiritual.Hushpuppies most sensuously presented
experiences are all hugely metaphoric - her motif of listening for heartbeats,
for example.But remarkably Hushpuppy herself
uses her father’s metaphors as a way to know the unknowable, which in her case
is her mother.She uses the jersey as a
physical metaphor for her mother when she talks to it, and she visualizes all
of her father’s metaphors about her mother literally.Her mother is faceless, unknowable, like God.
And she develops a relationship with her entirely through metaphor.

Augustine proposed that if something in a
text doesn’t make sense literally, it must be a metaphor.There are ample opportunities to exercise
this logic in Beasts of the Southern Wild.I struggled to make sense of Hushpuppy’s proclivity for hiding – bother
herself and other objects – throughout the film.As a behavior it didn’t make sense.But when her illogical need to hide things is
viewed symbolically, it becomes a representation of her interior emotions,
vulnerability, and childlike rationale.Hiding under a cardboard box in a house fire makes no sense literally,
but it forms a lovely metaphor, especially as she talks about her charcoal
drawings on the cardboard box lasting forever.

Boccaccio insisted that obscurity helps
meaning be more valuable because it takes more work to obtain. Throughout the
film, the reason these characters should stay in The Bathtub is obscure, yet
even a 6 year old can understand it.The
film metaphorically constructs a sense of place and identity and culture,
strong and “cohesive” enough that it’s value becomes understandable far more
effectively than if it had been promoted via rhetoric.

[7] “In A Dictionary of Symbols by
Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant, the meaning of water “may be reduced to
three main areas. It is a source of life, a vehicle of cleansing and a centre
of regeneration.” [ii] [ii]
Chevalier, Jean, and Alain Gheerbrant. Trans. John. Buchanan-Brown. A
Dictionary of Symbols.Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1994. Page 1081.